Suffering and Redemption
by Kumonoito
Summary: Ulquiorra is assigned the systematic 'breaking' of Orihime to adapt her to her long-term existence in Hueco Mundo. Violence. Sexual themes.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He could hear the screams from Orihime Inue's quarters before he could see the door. Turning the corner, he saw it had been ripped from its hinges yet again.

This was no surprise. Another part of Lord Aizen's plan to bind the woman to them was this charade in which Ulquiorra was to arrive and save her, repeatedly. She would come to crave his presence, Lord Aizen assured him.

This made sense to Ulquiorra. Humans depended on so many elaborate self-delusions, even under normal circumstances. No doubt she would go to extraordinary lengths to derive comfort from his periodic intervention, contrived though it was.

He entered the room to find one of the jealous little esprits ripping into Orihime Inue's chest. Half the screeching was coming from the attacker, Esperell, this time, a particularly vicious piece of trash.

Ulquiorra observed briefly before interfering. Esperell had torn a couple of the woman's chest muscles and cracked at least two ribs. While this could be considered superficial, there was also a profusely bleeding wound on her skull, which looked more dangerous. Ulquiorra noted the excessive damage. They weren't supposed to kill her, or cause her so much damage that she couldn't heal herself. This had gotten out of hand.

"Stop," he said, calmly.

Esperell turned at his interference, looking truly feral. Her rage was out of control, and he had interrupted her with her prey. She snarled and leapt at him.

Not bothering to dodge, Ulquiorra hooked a finger through one of the jaw bones projecting around her face and idly threw her through the wall behind him, out into the hallway. The screeching stopped, replaced by a stunned whine. "Remember your place," he said, without turning. He was satisfied when he heard the chastened harpy limping away.

He approached Orihime Inue, who stared up at him with glazed, expressionless eyes. He pulled away the shreds of the white and black espada uniform from her torso, examining the damage there. They were painful injuries, yes, but nothing that would kill her immediately. The blood loss eventually might, but there was some time before that. He turned his attention to the head wound. Blood trailed behind her to a crumbling dent several feet up on the wall of her bedroom. She didn't seem to be unconscious, but was unresponsive when he asked, "Woman. Can you heal yourself?"

He knelt across her, placing his long, pale fingers behind her neck, carefully lifting her head towards him and exploring the back of her skull with his other hand. Orihime grunted and winced when his fingers found the wound, sticky and matted. Her eyes focused on his face, finally, and she brought her own hand up to rest on his cheek. There was a brief flare of intense light, and Ulquiorra felt a bright energy searing his face beneath her hand. It took him a moment to realize what she had done. She had healed the scratches Esperell had left there.

It was ridiculous. He could regenerate whole limbs. What need had he of her healing a wound so trivial, he had even failed to notice it? It was especially ridiculous considering her very life was leaking out and making a bright red mess of the floor.

Orihime shifted her position and flinched, bringing his attention to her lower body. There were still more injuries he hadn't yet catalogued. He removed the remainder of the uniform and saw that her left leg was likely broken just below the knee. She couldn't move on her own, and he needed to bring her to her senses quickly. Ignoring the stains she left on his own uniform, he gently placed his arms beneath her knees and shoulders, and carried her into her bathroom, to weak moans and unintelligible protests. He lowered her into the bath and opened the cold water portal.

She gasped and began to breathe in sharp bursts as she became more aware of the pain. Ulquiorra grabbed one of her flailing hands in his and steadied her with his other hand on her shoulder. He guided her captured hand to the back of her head. "Heal this," he demanded. She squinted at him, as if trying to understand a foreign language through sheer will, and then finally nodded. He felt that searing heat again, as the hand he was holding channeled the healing of her cracked skull.

When the light faded, Orihime glanced around with more awareness, taking stock of her injuries. "C-c-cold," she said to Ulquiorra through gritted teeth. He opened the hot water, as well, and stopped the drain. She sighed and folded her arms over her hunched body, hands extended. It took a few more minutes to heal the rest of her, but eventually, she relaxed against the wall of the tub, whole again. Nothing but a slight pink tinge to the water remained of the ordeal.

Ulquiorra considered these events. Orihime might very well have been killed by the overexuberance of her attacker. The situation would need to be reevaluated. He was impatient to discuss it with Lord Aizen. "Are you able to care for yourself?" he asked the nearly unconscious woman. Orihime stirred, and began to drag herself out of the bath. She listlessly plucked up one of the bathing cloths stacked next to the tub to dry herself, slowly, methodically, swaying a little on her feet as she concentrated on this task. Ulquiorra readied himself to carry her to the bed, but she brushed past him and managed to lurch into the next room on her own. She fastidiously avoided stepping in the blood in the middle of the floor, and collapsed into the bed, which, miraculously, was entirely intact.

"I'll bring some food shortly, and a new uniform," he said to the woman, as she lay face down on the bed cover. She mumbled something he couldn't quite hear, which he took to be acknowledgement. As he turned to leave, however, she said again, more loudly, "I want it to be you."

He looked back over his shoulder, waiting for her to explain. Had he not just told her he would be bringing the food? The weight in her voice implied she was speaking of something else. She began to shift to get under the cover. He watched her do so as he waited, his still, green eyes noting that there was nothing else in Hueco Mundo that could quite match the color of her skin. When she was fully covered, she began to speak again, face to the wall.

"I… know that I am regarded as an enemy. I expect to be punished. Just… please… next time... I want you to be the one to do it."

This surprised him. He was not often surprised, but he silently agreed. If the campaign to break her spirit was to continue along these lines, it couldn't be entrusted to someone who would be carried away by their emotions. It should be him. Still, it was a decision that would be made by Lord Aizen.

He turned back to the door without responding, and left.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

While Orihime Inue's request perplexed Ulquiorra, Lord Aizen was mildly pleased.

"Hmm," he hummed appreciatively. "I suspected she would be a quick study. It appears she's jumping ahead in the program." Lord Aizen leaned thoughtfully upon one arm of his throne. The relaxed posture was at odds with the enormous pressure of his reiatsu, allowed to expand freely here in Las Noches. Ulquierro wondered if Lord Aizen displayed his power like this as a reaction to keeping himself hidden for so many years in Soul Society, or if it was a passive reminder to the Espada of their place. Lord Aizen's actions always had more than a single purpose. The complexity of his analysis was something Ulquiorra relied upon. If anyone could guide him in the handling of the human woman, it would be him.

Ulquierra waited silently, impassively, for his orders. Finally Lord Aizen continued, "There is no question that you will be the one to break her. Please proceed."

Ulquierra bowed slightly to indicate his compliance, but was still unsure. "My role in her subjugation will change from rescuer to torturer," he began.

"Mmhmm," Lord Aizen confirmed. "Does this bother you, Ulquiorra Cifer? How unlike you."

"No, Lord Aizen, you have made my duty clear. However, if you were to explain how this new course of action will serve to better bind her to you, I believe I would be more effective in my methods. I… don't understand humans to this extent." Especially human women, Ulquiorra admitted to himself.

"Of course," said Lord Aizen with a smile. He rose from the throne and closed the distance between them. He looked as though he were going to walk past him entirely, but he instead stopped next to the slender Espada, lowering his voice. "The Lady Inue has asked you to abuse her. When you comply, a part of her will be grateful. That part will bring with it a shame of such depth that she will be unable to feel a part of her former companions' lives, ever again."

"I see," replied the fourth Espada.

"You don't," said Lord Aizen, as he continued to exit the throne room. "But you will. I leave it to you."

Ulquiorra made arrangements for the walls of the woman's quarters to be repaired and reinforced, and the door to be warded. He delivered orders personally to those lesser hollows who had previously had access to Orihime Inue. They received their new instructions to avoid the woman strangely. In Esperell he noted a strange facial expression, possibly denoting fear, or anger. There was definitely some sort of urgency, but appropriately, none dared question him.

He approached the woman's quarters satisfied that they would not be interrupted. A service hollow trailed behind with her new clothes and a tray of food. The smooth gray walls had already been repaired and fortified, the door rehung. He deactivated the new wards and entered her rooms.

She was sitting up in one of the two chairs, wrapped in the bed cover. She looked relieved to see him. The server draped her uniform on the bed, arranged the food on her small table, and left them alone in the room. The woman got up from her seat and scooped up the uniform from the bed. She hesitated a moment, unfamiliar with the notion of having a man gazing at her so fixedly while she dressed, but finally she carefully unwrapped the bed cover and pulled on the clothes. It may have occurred to Ulquiorra that it would have been polite to look away, but if it did, he dismissed it as irrelevant. He studied her as she dressed, occupied with the problem of how to break her, as ordered. She was soft, and not just with respect to her female attributes. There were numerous female hollows with similar endowments, but they were also layered with muscle and bone.

Orihime Inue had rounded shoulders, silky arms unmarked by hard exercise. She was no warrior. Ulquiorra wondered if this impression might also be in response to her human youth. There was something not-quite-finished about the shape of her legs. They were long, but too smooth. And her face…

She finished dressing, and sat to eat. He was glad that they were past that particular struggle. There was food in front of her, and she did what was expected.

She jumped a little when he finally broke the silence. "It will be me," he informed her. "Lord Aizen has ordered that I continue your… reeducation, exclusively. You won't be able to survive as a human in Hueco Mondo unless you can relinquish your emotions, and your preconceptions about the sanctity of flesh. There is no such thing here. What is real is only your power and your will."

This was truth. He didn't explain Lord Aizen's theory that her complicit degradation would also bind her more fully to them by alienating her from the human world. If she could defeat her emotions in the way he proposed, shame would be moot.

She stared at her now empty plate, and whispered, "Thank you, Ulquiorra-san."

As far as he could read humans, Ulquiorra thought this was a genuine expression of gratitude. Lord Aizen had been correct in his prediction, as expected. Ulquiorra had much to learn.

"You mentioned punishment," he said. "For what do you deserve to be punished?"

"Oh," she began in a pained moan. "For my weakness. For being a burden. For being a target. For putting everyone in danger. For betraying them by coming here. For not having faith in everyone when they were fighting so hard!" She stopped to catch her breath, choking down sobs. "I tried so hard to get strong!" Her hands were clenched into fists on the table. Her normally smooth brow was creased and tense. Her cheeks were blushed and wet with unheeded tears.

This is what the so-called 'heart' could do to cripple its bearer, thought Ulquiorra. No matter. It would bend her to Lord Aizen's purposes all the sooner. Still, how could it be that her companions would treat her as the weakest among them?

"You are strong," he said aloud. "You have a power unheard of, and Lord Aizen will use it to remake the world." The woman responded by continuing to cry. Ulquiorra considered ordering her to stop, but had learned enough to realize this might not have the intended effect. Instead, he waited.

Eventually she stopped on her own, and wiped her face. "When are we… are you going to…?"

"Tomorrow," he told her. "We will start tomorrow."

The tension eased out of her face and shoulders. "Ah," she said, breathing in deeply, and letting it all out with a sigh. "Good. In that case, I don't suppose you have anything here that resembles dessert?"

On his way to see about 'cake', Ulquiorra wondered if he would ever be capable of truly understanding this woman.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Ulquiorra had little need for sleep, and had spent the intervening hours preparing. He had some knowledge of what damage could be taken by a human body before death was caused, but he didn't want to take any chances. His research had taken up most of the night. Strangely, he still felt ill-prepared.

As he approached the woman's quarters, he yet again caught himself reaching up to brush the cheek that she had healed. His assumption had been that her power simply left the focus of her healing in a previous, undamaged state. However, a tingling sensation persisted on his face, and in the hand that had held hers when she healed her head wound the previous day. When observed more closely, he could detect a slight reiatsu residue in these places, like a stain. He noted the phenomenon and resolved to monitor it for other side-effects and rate of decay.

This line of thought was interrupted by the sight of Grimmjow leaning up against the wall outside Orihime Inue's quarters. He was waiting, hands in pockets, one foot braced up behind him. Upon Ulquiorra's arrival, he reached one hand out to the door and tapped it impatiently. "I can't get in," he growled at Ulquiorra.

"No," replied Ulquiorra. "The woman has been remanded to me entirely."

"Tch. Come on, Ulqui. I just want a little taste." Grimmjow's voice was both wheedling and rough with suppressed violence. His outstretched hand began scratching absently at the door.

The felinoid arrancar was always wild, but this behavior stood out to Ulquiorra, reminding him of the reactions of the lesser hollows who had previously invaded Orihime's quarters, when he denied them further access. He still couldn't place it, exactly, but it might have been hunger.

"Your arm," said Ulquiorra, a thought occurring, "the one she regenerated… how does it feel?"

Grimmjow looked suspicious at this abrupt change of topic. Ulquiorra was not given to expressions of concern. Grimmjow glanced down at his left arm. He flexed it, experimentally, rolling his hand into a fist. His eyes closed, a shudder running through his body. "It feels… good. Really, really good." His eyes snapped back open and he thrust himself away from the wall. "But you would know all about that, wouldn't you? You smug asshole." He shoved a finger in Ulquiorra's face, pointing accusatorily at his cheek. "I can smell her on you."

Ulquiorra considered this strange reaction impassively, not deigning to respond to the accusation or the abrupt intrusion on his personal space. They both knew Grimmjow was no match for him if he wanted to turn this into a fight. Grimmjow stepped even closer, so close Ulquiorra could feel his breath, and he hissed, "I know what you're up to."

Ulquiorra's purpose here was not exactly a secret, but he didn't feel it necessary to explain himself to trash. It looked as though Grimmjow expected him to find this pronouncement threatening. He did not. But rather than elaborating, Grimmjow jammed his hands back into his hakama and backed off. He glanced at Orihime's door, then back at Ulquiorra. "Lucky fuck," he spat, before stalking away. "For now."

Ulquiorra waited for Grimmjow's presence to disappear entirely before releasing the wards and entering the woman's quarters. She was standing before the single window, in the pool of never-ending moonlight that spilled into the middle of the room. Her back was to him, but her face half-turned toward the sound of his entrance. "It's time," he told her.

She nodded, looking down to her hands, now busy in front of her. She brought her arms behind her back, and began to tug the sleeves down over her wrists. The espada jacket slipped down from her soft shoulders as she wriggled free. She placed the jacket carefully on the bed, and bent to remove the long, white skirt. This joined the jacket.

He had not asked her to do this, but didn't stop her. Instead he watched as she stepped back to the center of the room. Her slim arms, wholly inadequate to the task, were crossed in front of her breasts, but she dropped them, hands in fists at her side as she turned to face him fully. He modified his previous observation of the color of her skin. There proved to be many shades. The swell of her breasts and hips were paler, as though the pigment had been stretched thin. Her nipples, surprisingly dark in the middle of that pale expanse, matched the brownish red blush of her lips. The thatch of hair where her legs joined matched the copper tresses flowing over her shoulders. The symmetry was not unpleasing. She took an impressive breath, and then relaxed her hands at her sides. Eyes, wet again with tears, held his own.

"I'm ready," she said.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Ulquiorra stood by the entrance, considering. "Do you know why I'm here?" he asked.

"To punish me," she responded simply.

"No." This notion of guilt, while possibly aiding her willingness to proceed, nevertheless made him impatient. It was important to him that she understand what he was doing. What he was about to do. "This is not retribution for some imagined wrongdoing. You are being reshaped into an appropriate tool for Lord Aizen. You belong in Hueco Mundo now, and this is no place for weak human notions of 'friendship', or 'trust', or 'hope'. There is only power and will in the service of Lord Aizen. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she said, although the hesitance in her voice and creased brows indicated she clearly didn't. He shouldn't have expected her to understand, now. It wasn't something she could learn with her mind. It was going to be the pain of her body that would replace 'friendship' with independence and strength, 'trust' with calculation and cunning, and 'hope' with acceptance.

She couldn't fully understand his purpose, yet, but there was still something he needed from her before he could proceed. Lord Aizen had said it was important, and Ulquiorra agreed.

He flickered, and was suddenly standing directly in front of her. She flinched away from him, but then forced herself back to her position. "Do you want me to do this?" he asked.

"Want?" she repeated, distracted by his proximity.

He reached down for one of her hands, held it up between them, and began to squeeze, grinding the bones together as she gasped. "There will be pain," he said. "Do you want me to do this?"

"Ow. Stop," she whimpered.

He squeezed a little tighter. "It doesn't have to be me. But it will be someone. It could be Grimmjow, instead."

Her face paled and she stopped trying to free her hand, although he was sure he had cracked the bone of the smallest finger.

"Ask me," he pressed.

She turned her face away from his and stuttered, "P-please…"

He grabbed her face with his other hand and turned it back, holding it in place. He had to see her eyes. "Ask me," he said again.

She held his gaze this time, resistance gone, and whispered, "Please, Ulquiorra-san. Please break me."

His hand moved from her face to her waist, and with another flicker and a dizzying lurch, she found herself across the room, pressed against the wall.

Ulquiorra had been in many battles, but had never had to treat with a willing prey such as this. She was neither charging him in attack, nor very physically strong, so he anticipated one of the difficulties would be in keeping her from being flung away from him as he struck. The wall offered a partial solution.

The other problem was precision. In a battle, perforation of something vital was to be expected. In this situation, it could ruin everything. His hands left her and dropped to the sword at his side. His left thumb pressed lightly against the tsuba, exposing the barest inch of blade. He did not call his zanpakuto's name, allowing only a partial release. A full release could not be performed within Las Noches, but this would suffice. His senses were heightened. His fingers lengthened and sharpened, becoming more the precision implements he required.

"Oh!" the woman exclaimed, quietly.

He hadn't considered the effect of his increased reiatsu on her in this form. In battle, there was never anyone this close to him when he released Murcielago. She hadn't moved. Her eyes, however, were staring, pupils dilated. Her lips were parted slightly. But she appeared unharmed.

He wrapped his left hand around her shoulder and neck, to steady her, while his right hand came up to just below her throat. He had thought out much in advance, but knew there would be things he would have to learn as he went along. How much would she bleed? How much could she tolerate before she lost consciousness?

Her body trembled lightly with each rapid thud of her heart, which he felt so strongly through his palm on her sternum. Not here, he thought. He needed to avoid the head and chest. While he had not intended for her to disrobe, he recognized that it was now easier for him to find his way. His fingers lingered briefly over her pulse, then trailed outward toward her shoulder to the terminus of the clavicle. He rested his fore- and middle fingers in the divot below the shoulder joint and began to press slowly into her.

She screamed. That was expected. What was not expected was the sensation of bright, hot energy that flooded through his fingers into his own body.

Orihime's knees buckled and she fell out of his stunned grip on her other shoulder. She clutched at his impaling arm, scrabbling to pull herself upright and take the weight from the wound.

What was this sensation? It reminded him of his previous exposure to her healing power, but more intense. Of course. The power to reject came from within her. It was part of her. Was this her soul? His memory of being an ordinary hollow was dim, but he was sure he had never felt a human soul such as this. His eyes trailed the blood that was pushing out around his fingers, hypnotized by the way it traced the outside of her left breast, to drip from somewhere he couldn't see.

As Ulquiorra fought to regain his equilibrium, Orihime got her feet under her, and slowly stood up, legs braced against each other. She was no longer screaming. Now, a low, "hunh", was forced out between clenched teeth with each breath.

His focus was forced back up to her face when she wrapped her own right hand around the wrist of his left, which was still pressed against the wall by her face. Her eyes were full of resolve. "I can take it," she grunted. "I can do this." Was she reassuring herself? Or him? She dragged his hand down across her chest to the bottom of her ribs, leaving bright red gouges from his claws.

Another wave of energy leapt through his left hand. It became too much, and his body rebelled. He wanted more. He fought to regain control, horrified as he watched his own hand plunge deeply into her abdomen, rewarded by a much more intense surge of energy. His right hand pushed even further through her shoulder at the same time, shattering the shoulder blade and emerging from her back.

The screaming began again, but barely registered through the intense need with which Ulquiorra was battling. Part of him knew it was a bad indication that her struggles were getting weaker, but the best he could do was to keep himself from tearing her any further. The screams turned to sighs, and she didn't even try to hold herself up anymore. Her eyes were glazing over. She was losing consciousness.

She whispered, "Kurosake-kun."

Ulquiorra recoiled, finally breaking contact with her body. She slumped to the floor, staring ahead. He noted the amount of blood pooling on the floor, and the ragged hole left in her stomach. "We're finished," he said, his usual impassive face belying the panic he felt. "Heal yourself." He stood well back. She didn't move at first, exacerbating his panic, but then she dragged her uninjured arm in front of her, and activated the field.

He watched, from a distance, as her skin closed and the blood disappeared. The field flickered off, and she sat, still staring, but now her eyes were dulled by ordinary fatigue. She raised a hand to Ulquiorra. Did she expect him to help her up? The idea of grasping that hand caused him a twinge of hunger. He didn't trust himself to touch her right now. She shrugged and dropped her hand to the floor. Then she slid even further down the wall until she was lying flat, with her hands tucked under her head, knees bent. Her eyes remained open for another few seconds. Then they simply closed. Her breathing became deep and even.

Ulquiorra stood there for some minutes, then took her uniform from off the bed and draped it meticulously over one of the chairs. He took the cover from the bed and arranged it over Orihime's sleeping form, careful not to brush against her bare skin.

He was doubly careful to set the wards on her door as he left, and made his way to his own quarters. Ulquiorra's quarters were nearly identical to Orihime's. Possessions were unimportant. The needs of the flesh were not important. Only power. Only will.

He laid back upon his bed and raised his hands above him. They were stained with her reiatsu, both hands now, beneath the drying blood. He finally cancelled the partial release, and his own reiatsu dimmed to normal. His hands and clothes were now free of blood, but his limbs still pulsed with the memory of a bright hot power that was not his own.

He had much to consider, but two things were certain. Firstly, things were not going as planned. Secondly, he must prevent any other arrancar from ever harming Orihime Inue. It would end her life.

Then Ulquiorra Cifer, Espada Cuatro, who very nearly never slept… slept.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

He may have dreamed.

When Ulquiorra woke there was a lingering image in his mind, again of his hands. He had been looking down at them, wondering at the color, a strange, ruddy hue, against a field of green. They were also warm, a sensation he rarely felt in this nocturnal desert, despite the mocked blue sky of Las Noches. What woke him was the briefest sensation of fingertips brushing against his own, another warmth beginning to wrap itself around his.

He sat up on the side of his bed, orienting himself. This was his quarters. The unadorned grey, stone walls reflected the grey, stone moonlight streaming through his one window, as they always had. He wanted to check his face, but there was no mirror here. He had never felt the need for one. He didn't know what he would have been looking for, in any case. He then extended his senses beyond his walls, but nothing seemed amiss with Las Noches.

Finally, he examined his hands. They were pale, dry, and cold. They were his hands. Orihime's reiatsu lingered, but he would guess at about half the concentration it was before he slept. Good. It should wear off. Remembering the tremendous influx of energy from when he pierced the woman caused an uncomfortable pang. He was not accustomed to _pangs_, and suppressed the response harshly.

Ulquiorra headed to Lord Aizen to report his findings. As he strode through the cold stone halls he considered the implications. The woman's power to reject phenomena was as they thought, except for the disturbing side effects. Her reiatsu appeared to have an unanticipated influence on the arrancar who came in contact with it, either through being 'healed' or through… direct contact. He suppressed the pang, again.

What would Lord Aizen advise? Would he consider it a flaw? Or another useful aspect of her powers? Of course, he might decide Ulquiorra was not the best espada to be assigned to investigate. Eighth Espada Szayel had sophisticated equipment designed exactly for this sort of inquiry. Although, his test subjects rarely survived.

Ulquiorra's footsteps stopped, followed shortly by their cold, stone echoes. He stood in the arched hallway, examining the stripes of blue sky seen through yet another endless line of columns. Then he walked back the way he had come, turning down another hallway which headed ultimately to the kitchens.

He would not waste Lord Aizen's time with this until he had gathered more information.

Grimmjow was outside her quarters again. This time he was leaning against the wall opposite, staring fixedly at her door. He shifted his gaze only when Ulquiorra arrived with a tray of food and obstructed his view.

"Leave," said Ulquiorra.

Grimmjow stood, slowly, uncoiling from his slouch, and sniffed in his direction. "Hmph," he grunted. "You should learn how to share." Then he sauntered down the hall with a knowing smile.

Ulquiorra released the wards and entered the woman's quarters.

She was clothed, and appeared well. She was seated on the bed, with her legs folded beneath her, and her hands folded on top of them, but she rose quickly when he entered. "Ulquiorra-san," she greeted. Her fingers bumped his as she took the tray from him. "I was getting very hungry!"

The room's second chair had been moved to where he usually stood to watch her meals. It was conveniently placed, so he sat, and watched her shovel food down almost desperately. No doubt she needed to replace her energy after her recent ordeal. There was also more color to her to cheeks, possibly a sign of the immense stress she was dealing with. He would wait until she was done eating to question her and see how she was progressing.

The food's disappearance had slowed somewhat by the time she got to the steamed buns. She bit into the first, and her eyes widened. "Red bean paste!" she exclaimed, smiling at him.

She _smiled_.

At _him_.

Then she began to _hum_.

Orihime Inui did not appear to be broken. And, while Ulquiorra would admit to knowing very little about human females, he was beginning to suspect that she was, in fact, happy. He was doing something very, very wrong.

"Why are you humming?" he asked, his incredulity not quite making it into his voice.

"I really like red bean paste!" she explained, tilting her head slightly. She took another nibble of the soft, white pastry as illustration.

"You've just been ripped apart, to the brink of death, by the man who is now sitting across from you, and who will in all likelihood do it again in the near future." Did he really need to explain this? "Why are you _happy_?"

"Oh. That." Her expression became more serious. "It was really awful. It was. I don't think I've ever been in that much pain before." She looked down at her plate, some of the color leaving her cheeks as she remembered the last time he was in her room. She clutched her arms around her shoulders. This was more what he expected. Maybe it was just a matter of her brief attention span. But she continued, "It made me think of Rukia-chan, Ishida, Chad, and… Kurosake-kun. I've always been the one protected, you see, when we fight. They would go out there and get so terribly hurt, and I wouldn't. I think, that's why I lost my faith and came here with you, originally. I couldn't stand it. I was always so much more afraid of them getting hurt than they were." Her eyes shone strangely, reflecting a light other than that of the cold Hueco Mundo moon. "There was a moment I didn't think I would survive when you were… hurting me. But then I did. Now, I feel like I understand them all so much more, having gone through the same thing. Like my heart's that much closer to understanding theirs." She looked back up to Ulquiorra's impassive face. When he didn't respond, she added, nervously, "Oh. Well. I'm not explaining it very well."

Another bun disappeared as Ulquiorra stared at Orihime. Everything the woman spouted was… nonsense. Surrounded by arrancar, tortured, cut off from her former acquaintances entirely, she still somehow contrived to feel closer to them. And she had smiled. At him. What was he doing wrong? "Are you not afraid of me?" he asked. "You should know that if Lord Aizen ordered your death, I would kill you without hesitation."

"I know," she said, seriously. "But you won't kill me if he doesn't order you to. I don't think that's true of most of the arrancar here." Unbelievably, she smiled at him again.

"I trust you," she said.

Trust. Friendship. And 'hope' too, if he wasn't mistaken. He could hear it in her voice. None of these things had diminished. How could he break her of these things? Was he doing it wrong? Was Lord Aizen mistaken?

Impossible. He had to try again.

Ulquiorra appeared behind Orihme. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her off the chair, stumbling, to the open floor in the middle of the room.

"Ow!" she cried, startled. "Ulquiorra-san! That hurts!"

"Yes," he replied, tripping her feet out from under her and dumping her onto the floor. "That is the point."

This time, he would do it right.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Still holding her wrist, he squeezed until the bones ground together and he felt a pop. She objected, loudly, but he was pleased to discover that there was no distracting transfer of energy. He felt a small flare of reiatsu around the joint, but that was all. He suspected he may also have been more sensitive in his heightened state last time. He was not going to make that mistake again. Murcielago stayed in its sheath.

"Ow. Please. I'm not ready," she panted, sitting up and reaching for the injured wrist with her other hand.

He knelt beside her and pulled her back to the ground, stretching the captured wrist over her head. This brought his expressionless face down closer to hers. Three small vertical lines formed in the center of her smooth brow. "This is not about your convenience," he told her.

He released her wrist, and she immediately struggled to sit up again. "I don't want this," she said. "Please stop."

He pushed her back down with a hand on her face. "This will not stop, just because you ask," he said, moving his hands to her waist. "I am not your friend, to give you relief because you want me to." His fingers wrapped around her surprisingly small ribcage. "There are no friends here to save you." She struggled upward again as he began to squeeze. "Kurosake Ichigo is not here to save you!" The floating ribs on each side gave way, and she abruptly fell back again with a gasp. He shifted his grip higher and began to squeeze the next set of ribs. She squirmed within his grip, but the broken ribs kept her from trying to sit up again. "There is no one. You have no friends. Do you understand?" The next set of ribs cracked. She screamed this time, tears streaking down the side of her face into her hair. He eased the pressure back, waiting for her to catch her breath again, in pained, shallow gulps. "Do you understand?" he repeated.

"Yes," she whimpered.

"What do you understand?"

"I'm alone," she cried.

Good. They were making progress. Leaning over the woman was awkward. He ripped her skirt up the middle and knelt between her legs, instead. She began to struggle again. Her legs flailed, causing distracting, but ineffectual blows to fall on his head and chest, until he casually reached up to snap her left ankle. The kicking stopped, allowing him to seat himself more comfortably. He sat seiza, with one of woman's smooth thighs draped over each of his own.

She was whimpering something, begging, "Please don't, Ulquiorra-san." Orihime had managed to prop herself up on her elbows and was trying to pull herself off of him. He put his hands to her waist and pulled her hips back to his, tilting them up off the ground.

The terror on her face was gratifying. Of course he knew there was more than one way to break a woman. No doubt Grimmjow or Nnoitra would have validated her fear. But he had no intention of breaking her in this way, especially knowing the hazard exposure to her reiatsu represented. He was no animal.

But here, he had only to put her in this exposed position. Even the perceived threat was wrecking her almost as much as the actual broken bones. Unable to sit up, she was struggling still, pushing away at his hips and stomach, where she could reach him, even with the broken wrist. Her bare thighs clenched with her efforts, squeezing against his waist.

He wondered if there had ever been a man here, between Orihime's thighs, thrusting himself into her, to sighs instead of screams. Men do such things with women. Maybe Kurosake Ichigo had. He took in the whites of her eyes, wide in panic. He didn't think this woman had done this.

And it was perhaps not the time to ask.

He waited for her to tire of her struggles, and finally she stopped. She lay there, panting shallowly and watching him. Sure he had her attention, he drew his right hand across to her right hip. He put pressure on the soft skin and tense muscle there, careful not to break through, until he felt he had a firm grip on the bone beneath. He wrapped his left arm around her right thigh and began to apply a little pressure, using his own thigh as a fulcrum.

"I am going to remove your leg," he informed her, calmly. He had no intention of removing it completely. In addition to the hazard of exposure to her reiatsu, there were arteries there that would swiftly cause problems if ruptured. That didn't matter, though. He was discovering that her mind would make the threat much more damaging than the act. She was conveniently doing most of his work for him.

Ulquiorra began to pull, twisting the femur slightly outward. The ligaments attaching it to the hip were straining. "You're… what?" Orihime exclaimed. Her eyes widened again, the panic renewed. Her thighs clenched around him again as she tried to shift her hips to relieve the pressure that was building. "Stop! Ow! Aah!" She struggled, eyes closed now against this new pain. He had her immobilized now, and there was nothing she could do about his mangling of her leg. Nevertheless, she seemed to become quite frantic. She tried to find purchase against him with the other leg, but the angle was wrong. Her knee just slid past his shoulder. Ulquiorra twisted another few degrees and finally felt something snap as the head of the femur left its socket.

It was then the woman reached her limit. She screamed, "Soten kisshun!" and the healing field formed suddenly over the abused joint, and right through Ulquiorra.

He froze. It was… unbelievable. But there it was. He could feel it, having formed in a plane through him as he leaned over Orihime. It went through both arms, entering his abdomen at the front, and exiting his lower back. He was careful not to move, in case it disrupted the field, and concentrated on the feel of the joint reforming through her flesh beneath his hands.  
>The energy pulsing through him felt… pleasant, but curiously lacked the overwhelming impulses that accompanied his last exposure. The focused reiatsu associated with the exercise of her powers was more refined, compared to the raw reiatsu coursing through her own body.<p>

He was fixated on the energy filling him when the field suddenly cut off. Annoyed, he glanced up at Orihime's face. She was still terrified. "I panicked," she explained. "I didn't mean to." There was a note of pleading in her voice. She expected him to be angry, he realized, for healing herself before she was given permission.

Ulquiorra moved his hands from her hip and thigh to her ribcage again. She flinched as he leaned forward to cup his hands over the broken ribs on both sides. She had only dealt with the hip, in her panic. He carefully undid the fastenings on the arrancar jacket, and pulled it back to expose her broken ribs. He placed his hands directly on her skin, over the angry red marks from his mutilation of her earlier.

"Continue," he breathed.

This time the field intersected him from shoulder to hip, coursing through new areas. He drank it in, carefully noting its effects, on himself and on her. He saw the marks fading between his outspread fingers, and could feel the ribs throbbing and shifting back into place.

The field flickered off again, this time eliciting a soft, involuntary, "Ah," from Ulquiorra, at its suddenness. The woman was whole, unharmed and in no pain. She had yet to deal with her clothes. His position made it impossible to fix the skirt. Yet he did not move for some minutes. He was… thinking.

She lay still, watching him. She couldn't get up with him pinning her clothes to the cold, hard floor of her quarters, but she didn't try either. Finally, her eyes slid away to the barren walls, and she reached both her hands up to his right one. He allowed her to slide his hand up from her ribcage, under the edge of the jacket, and over her left breast. His own skin felt impossibly rough against the wide, soft, warm nipple. It stiffened, the skin under his hand pulling into tiny ridges, the entire breast firming in response. He squeezed, experimentally, curious, but stopped when it elicited a small whimper from Orihime.

Her eyes were still fixed on some far-off point, away from him. "What are you doing, woman?" he asked her softly. The aftereffects of his broad exposure to the healing were leaving him in an unanticipated state. He was feeling strangely contented. Part of him knew this should serve as a warning, but he had difficulty working out a reason to move from this spot.

She was unable to answer immediately. Tears had started again, and only strangled noises came from her throat at first. Finally she hugged his hand and forearm to her tightly and managed to speak. "You.. you're right. Ulquiorra-san. I _am_ alone. No one is going to come save me. Not even Kur… nobody." She stopped to breathe, and sob. "All I have is you." Her eyes flicked to his face briefly, then back to the wall. "I don't want to be alone." She was begging him. She brought her knees up again, this time to wrap her legs around him more securely. Her hips settled awkwardly against his thighs, and she appeared to be waiting.

Her grip on his arm brought his face closer to hers, as he leaned down. By her words, she had accepted her fate and her place in Hueco Mundo. This certainly looked, and sounded like despair, her hope broken.

Success, thought Ulquiorra, but the thought brought with it an unpleasant sensation. The buzzing contentment he had been enjoying until then concentrated suddenly in his chest. It was painful. Bitter.

It passed just as suddenly, but it had broken the languid comfort that immobilized him. He disentangled himself from the woman's limbs, and stood. "We're done," he told her, firmly. He then acted on an uncharacteristic impulse and reached down to help her up. She flinched away from his hand, triggering another sharp, sudden ache in his chest.

Something had gone wrong, again. His rejected hand unconsciously found the ache in his chest, centered around the gap there. How could something hurt like this, when it wasn't even there? Would it fade as her staining, infectious reiatsu faded? Suspicion entered his thoughts. Had she done something to him deliberately? Her lack of guile might have been an elaborate charade. Certainly Lord Aizen would have been capable of such a thing.

But not this one. He didn't believe it of this woman. Girl. He watched as she turned away from him to fix her clothes, something she might not have bothered to do previously. Because she had trusted him. Someone had trusted him, and no longer did. The ache this time threatened to double him over.

He needed to think. He needed to get away from her. Ulquiorra strode out of the room before she could turn back and see the distress he was in.

He laid a hand briefly on the door as it closed behind him, and reset the wards. However, with all his senses turned inward, he failed to notice the blue haired espada waiting around the corner.

After Ulquiorra hurried away from the door, Grimmjow sauntered up to it from the other direction. He put his own hand on it, and gave an experimental push. "Tsk. Not this time," he said, to no one in particular. He gave a brief sniff at the door, and, satisfied, breathed even more deeply. Grimmjow then went to lean up against the opposite wall, watching Orihime Inue's quarters, humming to himself.


	7. Chapter 7

He slept again.

He may have dreamed. And if he dreamt, it may have been to again feel warmth in his own flesh. Not just his hands, but a flush which crept up his arms and chest. And as his own body warmed, he may have felt another pressed against him.

The ache in the gap in his chest woke him. He grunted at the uncomfortable pressure, but it decreased as he came more fully awake and went about his duties.

Ulquiorra went first to Aizen. The experiment had gone too far for him to justify delaying any longer, but he only got so far as to suggest that the woman's powers might have unforseen side effects when Aizen waved him off.

They were in Aizen's lab, and he was exhibiting a particular focus on his work, eyes fairly gleaming with excitement. "Yes," he interrupted dismissively as Ulquiorra attempted to deliver his report, "I may explore that further at a later date. But it seems likely that Orihime Inue's powers will not be needed to awaken the hogyoku after all. I'm very close."

"I see," said Ulquiorra. "Would you have me dispose of the woman, then?" He ignored the sudden stabbing pains in his chest.

If Aizen noticed his discomfort, he gave no sign. "I shouldn't think so," said Aizen, conversationally. "After all, she has an entirely unique power. I still count her as one of our assets. Are you bored with the assignment, Ulquiorra Cifer?"

"No. I will continue to see to Orihime Inue, if you desire it."

"I do," confirmed Aizen.

Ulquiorra took his leave, considering that Lord Aizen's new indifference to Orihime was perhaps propitious. If Aizen had ordered him to replay the events from the previous evening, Ulquiorra would have been unable to comply.

When he had returned to his own quarters last night, he had harvested an eye to replay the events and sensations for himself, to feel again the woman's soft thighs pulling against his waist, the warm breast in his hand, the hot, bright energy searing through his body. In the privacy of his own room, he had allowed himself to gasp aloud at the shock of it.

Then, when it was through, he had harvested the other eye…

Grimmjow was again at her door when Ulquiorra arrived with the woman's breakfast. This time he stood directly in front of the door, blocking Ulquiorra's access.

"Move," ordered Ulquiorra.

"And if I don't," challenged Grimmjow, quietly, arms crossed over his chest.

"I will rend you," replied Ulquiorra, as though he was unconcerned either way.

"I have an idea," returned Grimmjow, still not moving out of the way, now showing his canines in a feline grin. "Fight me. We'll invite the woman. Surely she must be bored, stuck in there with only your sorry ass for company." Grimmjow licked his lips, eager now. "And after we've fought, she can heal us. Or oh, that's right, you can heal yourself." He leaned into Ulquiorra, voice lowering, "That's okay. She can heal _me_. You can _watch_."

There was no warning for the punch that threw Grimmjow into the far end of the hall, and he just barely evaded the green cero that followed, demolishing the end of the hallway completely. Grimmjow rose from the rubble, crouched to attack.

"We can fight," said Ulquiorra, "but the woman will not be allowed to heal you. Do you still desire to be crushed?"

Grimmjow neither answered nor attacked, but stood his ground in the hallway, glaring with frustration. Ulquiorra was not interested in the other espada's pique, however, and merely entered the woman's quarters, sealing the door behind him and leaving Grimmjow to seethe. Or not.

The woman was seated on the bed, feet on the floor, staring down. When Ulquiorra set down her tray, she shuffled to the table dutifully, eyes still downcast. "There was fighting?" she asked dully as she dusted the bits of wall off the plate's lid.

"Nothing of concern," replied Ulquiorra. And indeed, she did not appear concerned. She ate, food lifted listlessly from plate to mouth. There were steamed buns today, too. He had made sure, and was watching carefully when she took her first bite. She stopped then, chewing slowly, but rather than the spontaneous expression of delight she had evinced before, this time she put the favored pastry down as her eyes filled slowly with tears.

"You think I'm… easy. Don't you?" she said, staring down at her plate.

"No," he replied to her sniffs. He found her rather difficult in fact. He found her to be the single most challenging thing he had yet dealt with in his existence as an espada. Or if she meant that he considered her a loose woman, a whore, the answer was still the same. He was quite sure she had never been with a man.

And was she broken now? Ulquiorra approached, stepping around the table, almost leisurely. She watched him do so, eyes focused down around his knees. He lifted her up, guiding her with a hand on her arm, and she rose from the table without resistance.

It was difficult to tell if she expected him to hurt her, or …

"You offered yourself to me," he stated.

She shrugged, eyes still down, although he was so close that they were focused on his chest, now. It wasn't what he wanted from her. He wanted an explanation, some hint that would let him fit her response into a predictive model. He wanted to understand.

When he continued to stare, Orihime lifted her hands to her throat, slowly, trembling slightly, and began to unclasp her jacket. He watched her hands, delicate, smooth, move down her front, leaving a widening gap of exposed skin in their wake. Skin which, he knew, held a warmth and texture uncommon in this cold, hard place. He looked up to her face and beheld, in her hooded eyes, nothing but resignation. Based on her previous behavior, even this ritual disrobing failed to indicate if she expected to be torn or molested.

Perhaps they were the same to her. Did she care which was forthcoming?

Ulquiorra moved his own hands to stop hers. She stopped, dropping her hands to her sides. He began to redo the fastenings, reversing the course her hands had just taken. His fingers brushed that slight strip of flesh in the process, and he was forcibly reminded of the nearness, the _availability_, of her reiatsu, just under the skin. On the last clasp, he found his fingers lingering on the depression there at the base of her throat, where he could feel her quickening pulse. He hastily did up the last fastening as a blush began to creep into the woman's cheeks.

She was ready, he judged, to be forged anew as a tool for Lord Aizen. He was relieved, after experiencing such disturbing setbacks, to have achieved this much. Rebuilding her was going to take more subtlety than he currently possessed, however, or more guidance from his lord.

But Lord Aizen was busy with other things, and it would have to wait. Ulquiorra would monitor the woman, but he did not think any further 'education' was indicated at this time. And if he also happened to be reluctant to do more violence to the woman, that was probably only a temporary side effect of the reiatsu exposure, and therefore irrelevant.

He stepped away from her, ignoring how she swayed toward the space he had vacated, before she caught herself. He retrieved the now empty tray, and, without turning to look at her, said, "I'll return with your next meal."


	8. Chapter 8

Grimmjow

When Ulquiorra left the woman's quarters, Grimmjow couldn't be seen, but he could be felt. Ulquiorra found him just around the corner, waiting. Grimmjow was surprised to see him. Ulquiorra usually left in the other direction.

"Outside," ordered Ulquiorra as he stalked past.

Grimmjow raised an eyebrow at him, but then followed anyway. Out of curiosity, he told himself. "Yeah sure. Your word. My command. Yadda yadda." Numerous vaulted hallways later, they exited at a set of giant doubled gates out onto the cool sands of the Hueco Mundo desert. The hairs at the back of his neck rose as it occurred to him where they were going. Ulquiorra usually didn't seek him out unless there was an official reason. And if he had an official reason, what were they doing outside of Las Noches?

Ulquiorra strode a hundred feet onto the sands, then turned abruptly. "Why do you skulk around the woman's quarters, trash? What are your intentions?"

Tch. Why did he think? Why did he care? Was the cold, almighty, slab of marble actually being _protective_? Grimmjow answered warily, "Don't worry. I don't mean to harm her, too much. You just get an empty cage if you kill the bird, right?" And he suspected his enjoyment of _that_ little bird would diminish rather rapidly if she were a corpse.

Ulquiorra closed the distance between them and snatched up his left arm. Grimmjow suppressed the flinch at the unaccustomed familiarity as Ulquiorra's hard grip bore into his wrist. This was the arm the woman had given him. It itched. It burned. It pulsed in a way that kept him up at night, leaving him wanting, something. It felt… good. It was riddled with her reiatsu, still, after weeks. Could Ulquiorra sense it, too? Is that why he was staring at it so intently? Grimmjow's sensitivity to her reiatsu kept growing, and he could feel it all throughout the green-eyed asshole standing in front of him. He yanked his arm free. "No touchy," he growled.

The usually impassive Ulquiorra betrayed minute irritation at having his object of interest removed. But instead of asking him about his arm, Ulquiorra warned, "Leave the woman alone. Stay away from her quarters."

Was that all? They didn't have to come all the way out here for this. There was something else going on. Grimmjow suspected it had something to do with the inactivity over the last few days. For a couple of nights, he was entertained with a pretty good show. Whatever they were doing in there, he got high just on the cast off reiatsu flooding through the walls. But whatever they had been doing, they weren't doing it anymore, and it was putting the unshakable Ulquiorra off his game. Grimmjow could have sworn he saw thin traces of at least three different emotions flit across Ulquiorra's face in this conversation alone. It was a new record. Grimmjow wasn't exactly a master of subtle emotions, but some he knew better than others. For example, he was quite sure he could tell when someone was cruising for a fight.

"Listen, Emo Boy. Is this really about me stalking your girlfriend? Or is it about your blue balls?"

Grimmjow was ready for the first strike. Ulquiorra's fist grazed his stomach as he turned sideways to let it pass. Ulquiorra was faster, and had a meaner cero than Grimmjow, but in strictly physical strength, Grimmjow suspected he had an advantage over the smaller espada. He meant to keep this fight close. Grimmjow stepped in along the outside of Ulquiorra's punch until they were lined up front to back. Then he reached around to immobilize Ulquiorra with one arm around his throat and another clamped around the arm that had just punched out. Clasped tightly around Ulquiorra, Grimmjow could feel the woman's reiatsu even more strongly. Ulquiorra was saturated with it. He could practically breathe it in.

Grimmjow began to squeeze Ulquiorra's throat, cutting off his air between biceps and forearm, but the smaller espada _shrugged_, and was suddenly slipping down out of Grimmjow's grip and beneath his arm. Grimmjow managed to clutch his claws through Ulquiorra's throat before he got completely free, but then Ulquiorra also brought the horn of his broken helm to bear as he ducked. They separated as Ulquiorra spun away. Grimmjow was gratified by the way black blood sprayed from the gap in Ulquiorra's neck with each breath, but even as he watched, the wound was closing up, whereas the blood was still flowing freely from the gash across Grimmjow's chest. This is what he really hated about fighting the cuatro espada. You could just never make any _progress_.

He would have complained aloud, but Grimmjow just barely managed to dodge another strike. This wasn't like Ulquiorra. When the annoying little prick fought, he analyzed every move, usually waiting for the opponent to attack so he could take advantage of their momentum. It was less work for him that way. The lazy fu…

Ulquiorra caught him under the chin as he was turning to face him. Stunned, Grimmjow was only able to bring his arms up to protect himself from strike after strike. He felt bones breaking and Grimmjow realized that this fight was over already. Ulquiorra took away every chance he might have had to get his bearings to strike back. The pummeling seemed to come from all directions. But why wasn't he down, yet? Ulquiorra was more efficient than this. Tch. He hated being toyed with. He struck out, drunkenly, in the direction he thought Ulquiorra was coming from next, and was rewarded with a crushed jaw that threw him into the sand.

There were three Ulquiorras over him, all pointing into his face pointblank with the same glowing beginnings of a green cero. Grimmjow smiled through his broken face. "Do it," he urged. If he got hurt bad enough, they would _have_ to get Orihime Inue involved. But he was too eager, it broke through the uncharacteristic bloodlust that had taken hold of Ulquiorra, and the cero winked out. "No," growled Grimmjow, trying to push himself up on a broken arm. He was only able to roll himself up on his side, half sitting, hissing at the feel of bones grating together. Ulquiorra lowered his arm, regarded Grimmjow silently for a few moments, then turned toward the walls of Las Noches without further comment.

Typical.

Grimmjow tried to focus a cero on the retreating back, but then it occurred to him that he might be lucky just to be left in his current state. Ulquiorra had used him. He might have stopped beating on him, for now, but there was no telling if Ulquiorra was really _sated_. Through his blurred vision, Grimmjow could see several arrancar running toward him from the walls. They would take him to the medics. Not to Orihime Inue. He jerked himself up into a sitting position, to get the weight off his broken arm, and called out to Ulquiorra's back, "What! No cuddles?" The pain in his jaw was excruciating.

The fucker just kept walking, glowing with reiatsu that wasn't his. Grimmjow was going to find out how he got that way. Then he was going to get himself some. And the next time Ulquiorra came after him, he would be prepared.


	9. Chapter 9

Ulquiorra stood.

He realized, now, that when the chair had been placed near his usual post, it was an unspoken invitation to join the woman at her meal. The chair was no longer placed conveniently for his use. It was now against the wall on the other side of the room, where it had been originally.

So he stood, and watched her eat. She no longer expressed delight in the new foods Ulquiorra went to some lengths to demand from the kitchens, but she didn't resist eating them either. She would sit without comment when it arrived, consume it methodically, and then wait to be dismissed from the table before wandering to some other part of the room to sit and stare. She stopped crying over meaningless occurrences. She no longer asked him her ridiculous, emotional questions. She no longer tried to touch him - a hand on his arm, a brush of her fingers on his own when she handed him things, none of those.

She did not offer herself to him again…

The first few days of her new passivity had grated on him, agitating the swell of sensations her reiatsu had instigated within him. But now, rather than sloshing about dangerously, threatening to spill, the sensations had rather soaked in, reaching an equilibrium which allowed him to keep them in check. (Somehow, subduing Grimmjow had assisted Ulquiorra with this new accommodation, although, that was not a phenomenon he felt like analyzing too closely.) Knowing the woman would no longer initiate contact also gave him a better sense of control over her effect on him.

He should have been pleased. With her unwieldy notions of friendship and hope, she was useless, but now that he had, literally, ripped them from her, she was _potential_. A shell which, he knew, should have then been filled with the will of Aizen, but, continually, his Lord was occupied elsewhere. In the meantime, she withered. Her foreign, vibrant colors seemed to fade, converging to the monochrome that was Las Noches. Her hair no longer shone.

Ulquiorra reached out to Orihime's auburn hair, testing it with his fingers. They snarled and caught. "You have not been maintaining yourself," he observed. She turned to look up at him with empty eyes. "This. It's… disordered. You should remedy it."

She squinted at the snarl he held in front of her, and replied, "Yes, Ulquiorra-san," before rising and walking to the bathroom. He followed, curious that she meant to do it _now_. She stood in front of the mirror, hairbrush in hand. She placed the brush at the top of her head, and yanked it through to the bottom. It made disturbing noises - snapping, skittering noises - over and over as she repeated the process like an automaton.

As near as Ulquiorra could tell, it was mostly tightening the knots and breaking the hair, even ripping some of it out of her scalp. The now familiar ache in his chest twinged. "Stop," he ordered, and the brush stilled. He took it from her, and began to carefully tug it through the tangles, beginning at the bottom and working his way to the top. He watched her empty face in the mirror as he set her hair in order.

"What is your purpose?" he asked, almost ritually, as he removed her pins to get at the hair in front.

"To serve Lord Aizen," she answered, without hesitation, although it never touched her eyes.

"Lord Aizen appreciates beauty," he said. "That is reason enough to maintain yours." To serve Lord Aizen was reason enough for Ulquiorra, to do anything. It was the where and why of his existence. It should be hers as well. When she accepted this, then she would truly be a worthy tool. She would serve beside him, a welcome addition, shining in contrast to the other trash with which Ulquiorra was currently surrounded. He had begun to look forward to it.

"You think I'm beautiful?" she asked, eyes finally focused on him through the mirror.

"It's not a matter of my thinking it. You _are_ beautiful. You_ are _strong. I am merely stating the obvious." Finished with the brush, he turned her toward him and replaced her hair pins, taking care to insert them at the same height on each side. They were frequently a little bit off, and he found it more than a little distracting.

He dropped his hands reluctantly. It occurred to him, belatedly, that this was a task which would have been better suited to a servant arrancar, but he found it difficult to regret. He was still stained with her reiatsu, even after weeks, but it was less than it was, and he had accommodated. Now that he was finished tending to her, he was pleased to find that he could be this near to her, near enough to be bombarded with the energy pulsing beneath her skin, and yet not want to rip it from her for his own consumption. Even, for the last few minutes, the ache in his hollow hole had been thankfully silent.

"Kurosaki-kun never told me I was beautiful," she said. He waited for the tears a statement like this would have heralded in the past, but there were none. It was just an observation. Good.

"Kurosaki Ichigo is ignorant trash," he replied dismissively, again stating the obvious. She didn't say anything about her strength, he noticed. Her so-called friends had also made her feel weak, but she was not. Ulquiorra resolved to begin training her, in anticipation of Aizen-sama's wishes. Her offensive capabilities needed focus and exploration. She could easily hone her powers to espada levels. He relished a brief fantasy of the woman beating down Grimmjow. It was a satisfying image. "You _will_ be stronger," he said, intensely, imagining the havoc she could wreck when adequately trained, the power that would glitter from her hard, grey eyes, as she rent their enemies. "You will be _terrifying_."

He gripped her shoulders hard enough to bruise, but she offered no complaint. "Stronger?" she said, hesitantly. A little more of the vacancy in her gaze was edged out by a glimmer of resolve. "Hai, Ulquiorra-san. I will become stronger." Her fingers slipped around the grip on her shoulder. "I want…" she began, but was interrupted by a thin stream of reiatsu leaking into the room, powerful enough for him to feel through the shielding on her walls. It was gone almost immediately, but there had been enough to tell it wasn't hollow or shinigami. She shouldn't have been able to feel it, even at that level, but it was obvious that she had reacted to the spike of energy.

Even her senses were extraordinary.

"I will return with your next meal," he said, releasing her. "Prepare for your training." She nodded, distractedly massaging her shoulders where his hands had just been.

He was bombarded with clashing flashes of reiatsu beyond the walls of her room. It should never have gotten through into her room, but it had, and he was going to have to ask Szayelaporro Grantz for more sophisticated shielding. Or did it matter? She was with the arrancar, now, with Lord Aizen. The breaking of her will was complete. The intrusion of her former companions was irrelevant. Surely she would also see it this way. Ulquiorra resolved to simply discuss it with her openly. Indeed he was not sure why he had neglected to mention their presence in Hueco Mundo before.

Ulquiorra stepped into the surveillance center to find Grimmjow already there. He was leaning over an arrancar seated at the controls. "Follow that one," he ordered, leaving a fingerprint on one of the monitors next to a certain spiky-haired shinigami substitute. Ulquiorra resisted the urge to clean the glass. Grimmjow glanced sideways at Ulquiorra, but when Ulquiorra merely stood next to him to examine the monitors, he went back to stalking Kurosaki.

Ulquiorra noted that the invaders were within Las Noches, confirming what he had sensed already. Kurosaki Ichigo was now engaged with one of the privaron espada. There were other fights going on, shown on other monitors. The woman's former nakama were obviously outmatched. Foolish trash. How could they justify such a doomed attempt? Or… perhaps they had no choice. Given the effects of the woman's powers on arrancar, what would they be on her fellow humans, or shinigami? They had no doubt been healed by her multiple times, and may very well have been driven against hopeless odds by a physical addiction. It made more sense than Orihime Inoue's ridiculous notion of 'heart'.

His conjecture was interrupted by a harsh laugh from Grimmjow. It had been preceded by a sharp spike of reiatsu by one of the combatants, which then abruptly dimmed to nothing. He searched the screens for the likely source, and spotted an obscenely grinning Nnoitra Jiruga, standing over a bloodied and still Sado Yasutora. Grimmjow continued to chuckle, "Now _he's_ got the right idea."

"Aizen-sama has forbidden us from engaging the attackers," Ulquiorra warned him, inwardly annoyed at Nnoitra's inability to follow commands.

"Oh, I know," sneered Grimmjow with mock sympathy. "What kind of asshole would defy the great Lord Aizen?"

"Indeed," responded Ulquiorra. It wasn't that he couldn't detect sarcasm. It's that he couldn't be bothered.

Grimmjow turned his attention back to Kurosaki. His fight had ended, and he was making his way further into Las Noches. Grimmjow began to fidget, noticing Ulquiorra's attention latched onto _his _prey. "Don't you have some desk supplies to go organize?" he muttered at the intensely focused cuatro espada. Ulquiorra did not deign to reply. It was meaningless. He had no desk.

Grimmjow tried a different tactic. "Think the princess noticed that one getting snuffed? She might need some consoling."

Ulquiorra did not move. Finally, he said, "I have duties to attend to. If you do not, you should be in your quarters."

"I'll get right on that," Grimmjow assured the vanishing Ulquiorra.


	10. Chapter 10

Ulquiorra saw the slap coming, watched it over the course of its long, slow arc. It began with her hand tilted up, wrist exposed and glowing in the moonlight from the window. As it neared his face, her hand rotated forward, lining up the now shadowed palm with the plane of his cheek. He noticed her stance, the strike coming from her center, the follow through. How had he not seen that she had some martial training before?

He should have snapped her wrist, but instead, he turned his face away, attenuating the blow so that she wouldn't break her own hand.

How had it come to this? Had he not broken her?

Ulquiorra hadn't come to her right away upon Sado's defeat, but had seen to his duties first. There were preparations to be made for Aizen-sama's departure. When it was time for her evening meal, he finally went to see what, if any, effect her friends' status had on her. He was disappointed. She was anxious. On edge. He sought to remind her of her situation. She was one of them now. Her friends were irrelevant. Their fate was merely the inevitable product of their own ill-conceived actions.

She reacted… illogically. She contradicted obvious facts. She argued with him. She… struck him. Any other creature beside Aizen-sama would have found themselves instantly crushed if they had acted as she had. Look at her now, eyes wide, sweating, heart beating fiercely beneath the pale, soft skin. He hadn't seen her look so alive in days. Was this anger? Regret? Fear?

Did she fear his reprisal? There was no need. He had already torn and crushed her body (and replayed the events for himself so many times that it made him ill to think on). And still, he seemed to have missed something. Something that couldn't be found in the exposed viscera, the jagged spaces between bones, the clear saline that streamed from her eyes.

He had failed.

It hadn't worked. Or perhaps, he had only crushed half of what made up her foolish notions of friendship and hope. This new defiance arose with the arrival of her companions. It would brook nothing to tear _her _apart. To tear out the roots, he would have to rip them out where they dwelt.

He turned away, threatening to force feed her himself if there was any food left on the tray when he got back. It was a rote exchange. Meaningless. A return to old patterns. A bitter indication that all his progress of the past weeks was undone.

Immediately, he sought out the tainted reiatsu of the boy, Kurosaki Ichigo. Choking down the sudden, inexplicable sense of loss, he hurried toward the source of his pain, the roots of the woman's hope.

In his haste to destroy the intruder, Ulquiorra overlooked his habitual sealing of the door.

—-

Grimmjow stalked his way back to the surveillance room. These orders were bullshit. There was no way the intruders were going to just 'stumble across' him in his quarters. Especially not with everybody else breaking the rules. He knew the others were going out to battle. He was driven nearly insane by the flashes of reiatsu all over Las Noches.

The door was locked, but he kicked it open with a bang anyway, pleased by the way the lesser hollow manning the screens cowered before him. He gave them a toothy grin, and they cowered even more. Hm. Okay, that might backfire. He needed them to run the machines. He yanked one out from under a bench and put him back at his terminal. "Find me Kurosaki," he growled.

It was difficult to read an expression through the round, featureless bone mask, but the creature was bobbing its head manically, eager to be helpful, especially if it avoided crushing and rending. It was excessive, Grimmjow thought. It wasn't as if he had killed any of them the last time he was here. He glanced at the crumpled monitor where he had thrown a hollow out of frustration. There was hardly even any ichor. He was sure the previous hollow could have been patched up just fine.

The monitor in front of him came alive with a shot of his spiky-haired prey flying backward into a wall. Who was he fighting? Grimmjow leaned in, only to leap back hissing when he saw Ulquiorra cross the screen. "You fucking hypocrite," he accused the monitor. He glared at the other espada, who was moving almost too fast for the cameras to follow.

The blast of a cero whited out the screen for a moment. When the flare died, it revealed a torn, burnt shinigami, on his knees before the cuatro espada. "Get up, you little shinigami bitch," Grimmjow whispered to the beaten figure on the screen. "The only espada you should be kneeling to is _me_." As if in response, Kurosaki Ichigo mustered enough energy for one more effort, striking with his zanpakuto, but it was weak. The blade barely pierced Ulquiorra's jacket. He shrugged it aside, and thrust his hand fatally deep within the boy's chest. They appeared to be gazing intently into each other's faces, until Kurosaki's eyes glazed over, and he began to slowly slip down. Lifeblood followed Ulquiorra's hand as it withdrew from the body.

Grimmjow gripped the recently vacated chair in front of him. "Aargh!" he screamed in frustration, throwing it into a bank of monitors at the far end of the room. Lesser arrancar scattered. Grimmjow grabbed another chair, prepared to demolish all of Las Noches, starting with the surveillance room, but he glimpsed something on one of the other monitors that stopped him mid-fling. It wasn't another battle. It wasn't even a picture of anything moving. It was just a door. A door he knew very, very well. A door that was lying loose from its hinges.

His eyes widened as he dropped the chair. He looked back to the scene of Kurosaki's slaughter. Uquiorra seemed to consider the blood dripping from his hand for a moment before disappearing from the view. Then Grimmjow looked back to the broken door. Then he began to laugh.

He was still laughing as his sonido took him through the halls to the woman's quarters.


End file.
